Stainless, who's air shift system did you use or did you make it yourself? Duke and I are pretty much mechanical guys so we always start out that way. What Duke has done so far is pretty nice, the shifting shaft goes through a oilite self aligning bearing mounted in the fire wall and then the shaft from the shift lever will have a small U joint in to provide enough flex to keep the shafts aligned. We will provide pics as progress is made. I have been off deer hunting in AZ for the last two weeks to my rear axle modification is at a halt.

Stainless, I did briefly consider it, but like my dad said we are both very mechanical people and this was ultimately what I felt more comfortable with. I also have a bit of experience working on vintage mid-engined sports racer and open wheel cars which use a very similar linkage to what we will have. The linkages are very reliable in those applications and they do many more shifts than we will ever do. It also keeps it a bit more simple...and I like simple.

Just a little update on what we are doing to our lakester right now. We decided that we should have a stronger bearing on the side of the rear axle that has the panard rod as we do not feel that a single ball bearing is satisfactory when an axial (thrust) load is applied off set to the bearings axis. A single row ball bearing does not carry this load well so we have gone to a double row angular contact bearing. To accommodate this wider bearing we needed to lengthen the diameter on the axle that the bearing mounts by about 1 inch. Duke did an over lay weld and I just finished machining it. Came out pretty good the run out is +or- .001. Next the axle and assorted steel parts are off to the electroless nickel platers to get a good rust preventative coating.

A quick update on the progress of the Schimmer and Son IF/L. We have taken the engine and all of the new race parts to Engine Dynamics to be assembled. Should be back early June hopefully with some extra HPs included! We had all of the aluminum parts for the rear axle assembly black anodized and the axle itself has be electroless nickel plated, looks great! We are waiting on one bearing then we will assemble the axle and install in chassis. Waiting for feedback from Burns Stainless regarding a new header design, once we have it I will turn Duke loose with a bunch of stainless tubing and we will have a new stainless exhaust system. We have drawings out to the water jet shop for our new 17 inch wheel center fabrication so should have them ready for welding soon. We installed a new 3 gallon fuel cell to replace the 4 gallon cell we originally had, it gives us more room around the axle for the new panard rod installation we are doing. I am working on drawings for the mounting of the airfoils over the front and rear axles and have started to make the forming bucks for the ribs. Plenty to do but keeping at it every day gets it done. As we make some "seeable" progress I will attach pictures.

Making progress on the new wheel/tire combo. Got the centers for the new rear 17 inch wheels back from water jet cutting and then machined to be a .01 to .015 shrink fit in to rims. The team welding specialist (Duke) is now welding the centers into the rims. Ordering new tires next week,hope that the big reduction in width and a little increase in diameter will work out as we are hoping!